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The Power of Three (TV story)
The Power of Three 'is the fourth episode of the seventh series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Chris Chibnall, directed by Douglas Mackinnon and featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. Overview To be added Synopsis The Doctor and the Ponds puzzle over an unlikely invasion of Earth, as millions of sinister black cubes arrive overnight, almost like presents falling from the sky. But what are they, what is inside them and, most importantly, who sent them? With the international community at a loss, it is left to the Doctor and UNIT's chief scientific advisor, Kate Stewart, to unearth who is behind the mystery. At the same time, Amy and Rory discuss whether it's time to finally end their TARDIS travels and settle down... Plot The episode opens with a narration of Amy detailing her two lives, the chaotic and adventurous "Doctor life" and the down-to-earth, ordinary "real life". While she and Rory discuss whether or not they have to choose between the two, Amy's narration muses that adventuring with the Doctor made them a fixture in his life but he never remained long enough to become one in theirs except for the occasion that Amy refers to as the 'Year of the Slow Invasion". One night, while Amy and Rory are sleeping, a black cube materialises in the air and lands itself beside their bed. The following morning, Rory's father Brian wakes them up and they find the entire street covered in cubes, an event so vexing that the Doctor had already turned up to look into it. As world news talks about the appearance of the cubes, the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Brian examine one in the TARDIS and while the travellers leave Brian to watch them, the Doctor rigs up a lab in the kitchen to experiment on one and his companions, to his bemusement, simply get ready for their normal lives. While Rory gets ready to leave for work, the Doctor and Amy have a heart-to-heart about how much she's grown since he crashed in her garden when she was little when suddenly, squads of UNIT soldiers storm the house and secure it; the Head of Scientific Research, Kate Stewart, comes in in their stead and apologises before greeting the Doctor civilly. She informs them that UNIT had been performing experiments on the cubes ever since they appeared and they'd all proved they're indestructibility. Kate voices her wish to treat their appearance as hostile but lacks evidence to convince the world's powers so the Doctor proposes the plan that they watch them around the clock until they do something dangerous. However, after a few days, the Doctor gets bored and impatient and, taking an hour to quash his restlessness, vanishes into the TARDIS where Brian had been sat watching the cubes the entire time. The Doctor invites Amy and Rory to go off on his jaunt but they both simply imply that they've got lives to lead and his lifestyle isn't all there is; disheartened, he departs after they leave. Over the next few months, Amy and Rory both continue to live their lives and seem to subconsciously commit themselves to their home life, regardless of the cubes' presence. Meanwhile, Brian commits himself to watching the cubes and recording a log for everything it does while he's asleep that he sends to UNIT, as the Doctor instructed. Come December, Rory fails to notice the presence of a little girl brandishing an active cube while one of the patients at his hospital is spirited away by two nurses with mask-like faces. Over the following months, the world seems to take to the presence of the cubes, adopting them into their lives and making them a commonplace fixture in society. By June, on Amy and Rory's wedding anniversary, the government declares the cubes as 'Provisionally safe' when the Doctor returns and takes Amy and Rory away for a stay at the Savoy Hotel in 1190 as an anniversary gift, only for it to turn into an adventure when they find a Zygon ship under the Savoy and half the staff facsimiles). His attempts to make up for it involve a jaunt to Tudor England where Amy accidentally gets engaged to Henry VIII. When the Doctor returns them to the party in the 21st Century, he admits to Brian that he'd accidentally taken them off for several weeks. Brian asks to know what happened to his previous companions; he solemnly admits that while some left him and some were left behind, others died but he promises that latter fate will not befall Amy and Rory. Nonetheless, he takes Amy to the back garden and asks if he can stay with them for a little while with the cube 'crisis' still in progress. The following month, Brian completes another of his logs but falls asleep as the cube moves; he wakes up just in time to see it stop and starts recording. In the kitchen, Rory spots another cube open one of it's faces and rushes around to see what's inside but it closes up and opens the opposing face which does the same thing when he tries to see. In the bedroom, Amy notices a third cube glowing and goes to pick it up when it spikes her hand and takes her pulse. While the Doctor plays video games, a fourth cube starts hoving in front of him before presenting a laser from one of it's faces and fires at him. Ducking behind the door, the Doctor watches it download a large quantity of information about the human race through the TV. After everybody reconvenes, Rory gets a call from work asking him to come and help with people claiming to have been attacked by the cubes. After he leaves, taking Brian to help, the Doctor gets a message from Kate on the psychic paper, inviting him and Amy to the Tower of London, the headquaters of UNIT. When they arrive, Kate shows him various cubes behaving differently and scans from all over the world indicate the cubes now infiltrating secure government installation servers. Kate admits that she doesn't know how to act but the Doctor tells her not to worry - her father never flinched in a crisis. To be added Cast * The Doctor - Matt Smith * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill * Brian Williams - Mark Williams * Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave * Shakri - Steven Berkoff * Ranjit - Selva Rasalingam * Laura - Alice O'Connell * Arnold Underwood - Peter Cartwright * Orderly 1 - David Beck * Orderly 2 - Daniel Beck * UNIT researcher - David Hartley Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Power of Three'' page on '''Doctor Who Website